MEDITERRANEAN WINDOWS
FLOATING POINT

Naumon, La Biennale di Venezia,
September 9 – 11

Barcelona
October 9 – 21

Six comparable landscapes
During the second half of the 20th century, the majority of European cities were subject to phenomena of violent exchange (immigration, tourism...) and/or emergency situations (wars, natural catastrophes...) that still generate the relentless destruction of their recognisable urban fabrics, resulting in the sudden emergence of new opportunities for construction. During this period, almost all cities were forced to build new housing block developments on their outskirts that disregard the ideas of the Modern Movement concerning typologies and urbanism. The outcome is the rise of new ghettos characterised by deficient connections with the historical city centre, a lack of qualified public space, defective construction and a rigid, unimaginative typological approach to public housing design.

The Mediterranean Windows installation will present a common landscape of neighbourhoods belonging to different Mediterranean cities and generate a series of architectural workshops the purpose of which is to analyse and propose alternatives to these comparable urban environments.

Athens, Barcelona, Beirut, Istanbul, Marseilles and Venice are the first six chosen cities in which to embark on research with the aim of developing common strategies in the definition of social housing and public space as two compatible systems that may be conceived as a unit and serve as a transformation tool of deteriorated urban environments.

Six windows
The Mediterranean Windows project presents a unique audio-visual landscape of neighbourhoods sharing similar urban conditions and belonging to different cities. A multiple-screen installation in a ‘loop’ to show simultaneously the six chosen neighbourhoods carried out during the Workshop. Six identical trips to six different places. Predetermining certain ‘items’ in order to show some places where one might take a look and embark on a trip to discover them in a process that repeats itself six times. All locations share the same series of descriptive sequences, from the arrival at the cities’ harbours to the sights filmed from a window in a neighbourhood dwelling.

Original idea:
Josep Bohigas

Film direction:
Fotoleve – José González and Eva Serrats

Producer:
Fundació Mies van der Rohe